The Lady of Silence The Mataviejitas Murders Review: The Netflix documentary film, also known as El caso de la Mataviejitas is based on the multiple murders of older women in Mexico City from 1998-2006. The docufilm is directed by María Jose Cuevas and produced by Laura Woldenberg and Ivonne Gutiérrez. The series features several officers and experts who worked on the cast and the family members of several victims. The documentary is 1 hour 51 minutes long and has English subtitles.
The Lady of Silence The Mataviejitas Murders Review Contains Mild Spoilers
Netflix is back with another chilling documentary on a serial killer. In The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas Murders, a serial killer terrifies everyone by killing older women. These older women were widows, mothers and grandmothers. The first case happened in 1998, and the killings continued till 2006, with cops having no clue about the killer’s identity for a long time. It was in the year 2003 they figured that the victims were strangulated similarly, and that was an act of a serial killer.
The documentary begins with a woman narrating how she discovered her mother was killed. It’s a chilling story. More inputs about the serial killings are shared by various officers, media people, a criminologist and other victims’ family members. The pressure on the cops was a lot in 2003 with back-to-back murders. It was a challenge for the Mexican police force as after 1942; it was the first time they were dealing with a serial killer. In 1942, Gregorio Cárdenas Hernández gave a hard time to everyone in the city.
Netflix documentary The Lady of Silence The Mataviejitas highlights everything that happened in the investigation. The cops first struggled with the identity of the killer. First, they thought it was a man, then a woman and then a transgender person. They raided places where trans people worked, dressing up as men. A woman outside a bank was taken to the police station because her physique matched the vague killer sketch going around.
The older women in Mexico lived with fear. Families were worried about leaving their parents alone even for a minute. Yet, somehow, the killer knew which older woman was alone and successfully committed the crime. The Mataviejitas case started other discussions about the increase in crime against women of all ages in the city. The cops arrested two people, a woman named Araceli Vasquez and a man named Jorge Mario Tablas Silva. They claimed to have found fingerprints of both these individuals at different crime scenes. Yet, none of these arrests stopped the murders from happening.
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Who Was the Real The Lady of Silence, The Mataviejitas?
In the last 45 minutes of the 2-hour documentary, we finally learn who the real serial killer is. It’s a woman named Juana Barraza, a former wrestler who called herself The Lady of Silence. Juana revealed that she had a lot of anger and hate against older women because of what her mother did to her when she was young. The killer claimed that it was due to her past trauma she committed the crimes. So what exactly did her mother do, and how was she sentenced? The docufilm gives us all the answers.
We’re also shown how the people in Mexico made The Lady of Silence Juana Barraza, a celebrity. Some people would dress up like her, making songs and sketches. We see how deeply upset the victims’ family members are to see the woman who killed their loved ones become a social media sensation. She was the first female serial killer in the city, and for some strange reasons, that got people’s attention in a sensational manner.
The Lady of Silence: The Mataviejitas doesn’t shy away from calling out the discrepancies of the investigation. If Juana was the killer, why were Araceli and Jorge arrested? Why were they not released from prison? Did the police find their fingerprints? Also, 49 older women were murdered between 1998-2006, and Juana was charged only with 17 murders. So the cases of 32 murders remain unsolved.
María Jose Cuevas interviewed many people for the documentary to help us understand the gravity of the crime and loss. The photos, old footage, and performative scenes help us assemble the timeline, the incidents and how the case affected people and politicians. But what I didn’t like was the use of over-dramatic transition effects and loud background music. Serial killer documentaries often use BGM to intensify the scene. But it shouldn’t be so loud that it pulls down the seriousness of the case.
The Lady of Silence The Mataviejitas Murders Review: Final Thoughts
Overall, the Netflix documentary is a must-watch for serial killer documentary aficionados. The makers don’t make the killer look like some icon, and more significance is given to the victims. The docufilm not only helps us with necessary information about the case but also leaves many queries to discuss.
The docufilm is now streaming on Netflix.